


Wingspan

by likethedirection



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Post-Season/Series 08 Canon Divergence, Pre-Series through Post-Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethedirection/pseuds/likethedirection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stages of Dean Winchester's life, measured in wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wingspan

1.

Mom called them angel hugs, and they were his favorite.  They weren't for special occasions, or only when he was sick or scared or had scraped his knee; they were for any time, all the time, but especially for bedtime.

It was the best in the winter, with snow piled high on the rooftops outside his window and floating down from the sky, the smell of pine curling into every room and making it feel extra warm.  Mom would tuck him in with a blanket draped around her shoulders, and he’d grin in anticipation as she held onto the corners and opened her arms, spreading the blanket wide like wings.

He'd dive into her, and she'd wrap him in her arms and her blanket-wings, kissing the top of his head two times.  “This one’s from me,” she’d say, “and this one’s from your angel.”

On cue, he’d look up at her and say, “Mom, my angel’s you.”  He always said it, because it always made her smile.

“No, Dean,” she’d say, petting back his hair, “my angel’s you.”

 

2.

Sometimes when Dad got back to Uncle Bobby’s, he’d be okay, and other times he wouldn’t.  When he wasn’t, Uncle Bobby would usually let Dean take Sammy up to the attic, where they could find all kinds of weird stuff to explore.  But sometimes Dad got back really late, way after bedtime, and sometimes Uncle Bobby would already be in bed, too, and sometimes Dean couldn't sleep no matter how many times he replayed _Hey, Jude_ in his head.

The first time, Dad was sitting in the darkened living room, illuminated by the TV, but he wasn’t really watching it.  He couldn't even see it, because his head was in his hands.

Hovering in the doorway, still wrapped in his favorite Uncle Bobby-blanket with the cowboy pattern, Dean eyed the open bottle on the coffee table and hoped Dad wouldn't get mad.

“Dad?” he tried first, and Dad’s shoulders twitched.

“Go to bed, Dean,” he answered, but he didn’t sound mad, so Dean crept closer and climbed up next to him on the couch, not sure why it was important to be quiet when Dad already knew he was there.  “Dean, not now,” Dad said again, sounding tired and broken, and Dean bit his lip, then gripped his blanket’s corners and spread his arms wide.

Dad froze once Dean’s arms were around him.  Dad had never given angel hugs, but he’d seemed to like watching when Mom had, before the fire.  Maybe Dean could make him smile like that again, the way he’d been able to make Mom smile.

“This is from me,” Dean said, and it already felt clumsy and only half-right, not like Mom did it, “and it’s from your angel, too, okay?”

When Dad looked up, he wasn’t smiling.  His eyes were wet.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said immediately, twitching back as his hopes crumpled.  He’d done something horribly wrong.

Dad’s big, rough hand cupped his cheek while he murmured, “No, no.”  Dad looked at him for a long time and whispered, “You’re just like your mom, you know that?”  Dean shrugged, a little spooked but not enough to move, and Dad took a shaky breath and confessed in a crackly voice, “I’m missing her a lot, buddy.”

Dean didn't know what to say except the truth.  “Me, too.”

There was another stab of dismay when that made the tears roll down Dad’s cheeks.  Unsure what else to do, Dean wrapped his arm-wings back around Dad’s neck.  Dad leaned into him and got his pajama shirt wet, and Dean rubbed his back the way Mom used to rub his.

“It’s okay, Dad,” he whispered.

 

3.

It was Christmas morning, and Dad was still gone, and Sam had cried himself to sleep on Christmas Eve because Dean had told him all his nightmares were real, but at least Dean could give the kid one thing he wanted.  He was exhausted after spending half the night hunting down unwanted pine, carefully disconnecting one light string from the million others on a hedge probably worth more than everything he owned, and pilfering a couple of rich-kid presents (and hoping to God they weren't chick-toys), but he was pretty proud of his handiwork, at least up until Sam caught him in his lie.

Sam told him the effort was enough, but it was Christmas morning and Sam hadn’t smiled once.  He was fiddling with the lights on their lame little tree, evening them out, slumping like he was carrying their whole messed-up family on his skinny back.  There were goosebumps on his arms from the draft under the door.

It hurt too much, felt too much like a failure, and Sam had given him something so _good_ , something cool and right.  He deserved to be happy on Christmas.  He deserved to be happy all the time.

Sighing, Dean grabbed the least scratchy of the blankets from his bed.  They were getting a little old for this, but whatever, it was Christmas.

“So, you know the story of what happened on Christmas like a million years ago, right?” he said, slinging the blanket around himself.  Sam glanced up, unimpressed, and Dean answered, “The angel came down from Heaven, and he said,” he whipped his arms out, blanket-corners in hand, “‘I’m Batman.’”

Sam rolled his eyes.  “Yeah, Dean, oka- _ay!_ ” he yelped, totally failing to do anything about Dean tackling him.

“Then he said, ‘I don’t like weird little elf kids named Sam,’” Dean squeezed out in his best Batman-growl while he scuffled with Sam on the carpet, catching his ticklish spots with zero mercy and making Sam crow with laughter.  “‘Remind me of nerdy little penguins, and you _know_ how I feel about penguins’-- _ow_ , dude--”

The impromptu wrestling match lasted impressively long, for Sam, and might have even gone longer if they hadn't rolled into the fail-tree and sent it toppling down on top of them.

It was light enough that it didn’t hurt anything, and they were laughing too hard to notice much, anyway.  Sam had a totally obnoxious laugh, and it made his face extra-weird and glowy, and it was the best thing Dean had heard or seen in weeks.  Dean threw his blanket-wings around Sam in a big cheesy hug, ready to tick him off and start Round Two, but to his surprise, Sam hugged him back hard.

“Thanks, Dean,” he said.

Dean sighed and squeezed, keeping him warm.  “Merry Christmas, Sammy.”

 

4.

Sam disappeared down the road to the life he wanted, as a perfect college boy with no dad and no brother, and as soon as they got to a motel, Dad got drunk, hard and fast.  When Dean carefully advised that he slow down, he got a tumbler glass thrown at his head.  Dodging was easy, and Dad knew he would, but the sharp shatter of it against the wall still felt like a really shitty ending to a story gone wrong.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” he said softly, because this had been his job, too.  Not just to keep Sam safe, keep him protected, but to keep him _here_.  To be enough to keep him here, because Dad already knew he couldn’t be that on his own.  Dad hadn’t been that in a long time.

Dad didn’t seem to hear him, and Dean needed to not be in here.  His insides felt rickety, cracking and shuddering toward an inevitable collapse, and he would never forgive himself for letting it happen in front of Dad, just like he would never forgive himself for tonight.  Swallowing hard, he grabbed the heaviest blanket off the bed not covered in Dad’s weapons and grief, and skirted around Dad to get the keys.

“Car,” he said in explanation, because Dad did that sometimes, too, when he needed to escape from them.  He stopped at the sink and filled a few of the paper cups with water, then set them within arm’s reach.  He nodded toward the broken glass, the amber stain on the carpet.  “I’ll get that in a little bit.”  Dad grunted, staring at the label of his bottle with wet eyes, and Dean wasn’t going to be enough for him, either.  Not tonight.

“Dad,” Dean said, firmer, getting a second of eye-contact for his trouble.  He wondered what Dad saw.  Setting his jaw, he gave the only order Dad would ever take from him, at least when it was about this.

“Be here tomorrow.”

Dad looked tiredly at the water cups, then took one, slopping some of it over the side before tipping it down his throat in one go.  He looked at Dean for a second after, _See?_ , then dropped his gaze and picked up his bottle again.

Dean turned and left him there.  He closed the door behind him and stood in the cooling fall air, and he wished it were colder, enough to sting his lungs and ground him.  He unlocked the car and shrugged off his jacket, folding it up and tossing it into the backseat for a pillow, and climbed in after it, the blanket draped over his arm.  He locked the doors, checked the firearms under the seats, and settled on his back, drawing up his knees and crossing his arms tightly over his chest.  Tried not to think about the plastic army men lodged in the compartment a few inches from his head.

He stared at the roof of the car until his vision was too wet and blurry to see much of anything.

The backseat was the perfect bed when he was a third of his age and half his size, but now it was cramped and silent.  Taking a shuddering breath that was too loud in the empty space, he sat up and pulled his own whiskey flask out of his jacket-pillow.  The deep drought he took was stinging and unsatisfying.  He took another, then one more.

He didn't throw it when he was done.  He shoved it silently in his back pocket, then unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around himself.  He held on to the corners for a second and sort of wanted to scream.  Didn't.

Forcing his lungs to do their job right, he curled on his side, facing the backrest, and drifted restlessly to sleep wrapped in his own wings, pretending they belonged to someone else.

 

5.

He is carving out slices of a rapist’s soul, shuddering with pleasure-pain-sob- _please_ under Alastair's touch, when It comes for him.  It is towering and terrifying, and It brings him right to his knees, and It wraps around him like arms, blue and searing and holy.

In the moment before they ascend, It whispers through the shreds of all he is, _Do not be afraid._  Something brushes his back, whisper-soft, and for the barest second, he thinks, _maybe_ \--

 

6.

Anna’s skin is smooth and sweet, and running his palm slowly along the curve of her back, from the dip in her spine to the blades of her shoulders, is how he defines meditation.  She brushes her thumb along his tattoo and kisses the hollow of his chest, and he tries not to wonder what the hell he thinks he’s doing.  The car’s windows are still fogged, the outside world cut off by mist.  If he unfocuses his eyes, he can pretend it’s not there.

Her hair slips over his shoulder, and he thinks a little incredulously, _angel.  Angel angel angel._

“Hey,” he murmurs, and she hums a question mark into his skin.  “So Cas showed me something, when I met him.  Or...kind of.  I didn't believe he was a real angel, so he--”

“Flashed you his thunder-wings?” she finishes for him, resting her chin on her arm to grin up at him, and he grins self-consciously back.  “You want to know if they’re real.”

“No, I get that they’re real,” he says.  “I get that.  Just...you guys don’t always look human, right?  So why’d it look like, y’know.  Like something that made sense to me?”

“It’s just the way an angel’s grace manifests when we take a human vessel,” she says while he studies his reflection in her dark, ancient eyes.  “The last time angels and humans were on speaking terms, word got around.  Images were created, lasting ones.  Somehow, they stayed pretty consistent.  That’s all.”

“Huh.”  He absently traces her shoulderblades, and she eyes him like she’s in on a joke he missed.  He looks at the roof of the car and remembers another time he looked at it like this, and bites his lip.  Shakes his head a little.  “So this is a really weird question, okay, but just humor me.”

She lifts an eyebrow, _What do you think I've been doing?_ , but waits.

He takes a breath and figures he can’t really embarrass himself in front of a being who already probably sees him as some sort of confused mayfly that can do a cute trick.  “If you’re in human form, and you hug someone, or something, what do your wings do?”  She frowns a little, not seeming to get the question, and he goes on, “Like, do they spread out, or, I dunno, wrap around, or do whatever they want, or…?”

The answer doesn't matter, he tells himself, because his memories are his memories and they are what matter.

Anna says, “I’m fallen, Dean.  I lost my wings a long time ago.”

Dean winces a little in apology, but she doesn't seem upset.  “In general, though.  Like, the others.  Cas, and.”  The other jerk’s name slips his mind for a second, but he doesn't really want to know how that guy hugs, anyway.

Anna frowns again, like he’s asked why the sky is made of Plexiglass.  “Castiel is an angel, Dean,” she says slowly.  “Angels don’t hug.”

Dean forces out half a laugh.  “That figures.”

She doesn't laugh with him, but just watches him for a little while, something like sympathy in her face.

 

7.

He dreams that he said yes.

He is Michael, and Michael is him, and he is enormous and magnificent and wrong.  He is soaring far above the cracking earth, and it feels different than he thought it would.  His wings are a different color every time they beat in the corner of his eye.

Diving through dark clouds, he spies his brother.  Their brother.  He stands on a fault line that is opening beneath him, reaching up for him, and Dean reaches back.  

He and Michael pull their brother into their arms while the world erupts in flame.

His feet are on the ground, and Sam is still in his arms, and he’s running down the steps as fast as he can, wings beating behind him to speed his descent, because Heaven is burning.  The flames chase them all the way down.  He kneels with Sam under Alastair’s rack and watches Heaven’s upstairs windows shatter, and he wraps his wings into a shield around Sam, because Sam is just a baby and a precious thing and he needs to be kept safe.

Hands clamp around his arms, and a voice growls, _Dean_ \--

His lungs seize painfully and his eyes fly open, and his body jerks upright and immediately fights.  Someone is still holding his arms, and their grip has its own gravity.

“Dean,” he hears again, and his blurry eyes focus.  Motel room and twisted sheets and weak moonlight, and Castiel’s immovable stare.  Dean swallows and tries to breathe, shaking in time with the galloping pulse in his ears.

Hushed and hesitant, Castiel says, “You were calling out in your dreams.”

Something spills out of Dean’s eyes, and it occurs to him that they were already streaming.  There is more building behind it, a panic attack and a sob or a scream, because _God_  he can’t do this, and he can’t be this, and Sam is far away because he sent him away, where he isn't safe, because they will never be safe and this will never be _over_ \--

“Dean, listen to me.”  Low and soft like gears turning, and Dean clutches the sound, the gaze, anything to anchor him.  Castiel grips his arms a little more tightly, like he understands.  “What you dreamed will not come to pass.  It was only your soul communing with your subconscious, expressing its fears.  Sam is strong enough to resist Lucifer, and you are strong enough to resist Michael.”  Dean is already shaking his head when Castiel adds, softer, “And you are not fighting this alone.”

Dean stares at him, and something inside him cracks in half, and the tears grab him by the ribs and shake him.  He crumples, and his only saving grace is that he manages to be quiet about it, though breath doesn’t come easy.  He wants to be someone else.  Anyone else.

Castiel’s hands hesitate by his arms, and Dean knows he’s ruined it.  He waits for the wingbeats, waits to be alone again so he can get this shit out of his system.

Haltingly, experimentally, Castiel’s arms wrap around Dean’s shoulders.  They rest there, _Now what?_ , and Dean had no idea how much he needed it until he’s got it.  His arms wind around Castiel and show him how it works, and he presses his forehead into the collar of his coat, and he tries like hell to breathe.

Castiel figures it out.  His grip is strong and snug and warm, and Dean soaks it in.  Cheek against Dean’s temple, Castiel whispers again, “You are not alone.”

As Dean dries himself out and his body begins to remember air, a piece of him whispers back, _I remember this._

He stays sagged against Castiel for a while after the storm passes, and Castiel seems okay with it, loosening his grip but not letting go.  Dean’s ears are ringing a little, and he wonders if it’s just his body asking him what the hell all that was about, or if it’s Castiel, the real him, humming underneath his borrowed skin.

_I remember this._

“Cas?” he says in the rasp that’s left of his voice, and Castiel doesn’t say anything, but the air shifts with expectation.  Dean swallows.  “When I was in Hell.  When you found me, before we went up, did...did we do this?  Or...something like this?”

Castiel is quiet a moment.  “I didn't think you remembered.”

“Not all of it.  But sometimes, I get...like flashes, kind of.  But I feel like...did you tell me not to be scared?”

Castiel softly replies, “Yes.”

Something rushes through Dean’s veins, and he tightens his grip.  “I thought I felt,” he starts again, and swallows when his voice tries to break.  “I thought I felt wings.”

Castiel’s thumb brushes a quarter inch against Dean’s shirt, and Dean closes his eyes and takes a second to deal with having the full attention of this enormous, ancient, holy creature, who sees and knows damn near everything and has chosen to sit here on the edge of his bed and give him the longest hug he’s ever gotten.  God.  “Just, I mean.  Can you do that, like this?”  A little self-consciously, “Could you do it now if you wanted to?”

“I am doing it, Dean.”

Dean’s mind goes still.

Castiel seems to think a moment, then pulls one arm away, the other staying firmly across Dean’s back.  His free hand fits itself to Dean’s arm, sliding underneath his T-shirt sleeve until it’s pressed over the handprint he left behind.  Dean closes his eyes and shivers.

“They exist on a different plane than this one,” Castiel explains.  “Most humans are unable to look upon them, but you bear the imprint of my grace.  It’s possible that I can take you somewhere in between.”  On the other side of Dean’s eyelids, light burns and fades, but doesn't go out.  

Castiel murmurs, “Open your eyes.”

Dean does.  Then he huffs a broken laugh, because it’s so much like what he imagined every time his mom wrapped him up and let him pretend he was wrapped up in wings.  They’re gigantic, hued a soft gray that here and there gleams with pure white energy or darkens almost to black, and feathers are brushing against his arms and sides and the back of his neck, and he loves Castiel so damn much for giving him this.

 _Look, Mom_ , he thinks, stupidly, _no blanket._

What he really says, and means, is, “Thank you.”

Castiel smiles mostly with his blue-glowing eyes and leans in to kiss Dean’s forehead, a benediction, as he pulls his hand away and vanishes the wings.  His arm comes back to join the other around Dean’s shoulders, and inexplicable relief washes through.  Dean can give himself this, just for now, while the back of his memory still whispers with flames.  He can let an angel take his weight for a little while, and he can let himself be the one shielded by wings.  Just for a minute.

When he closes his eyes, he can still feel them.

 

8.

He loses everyone, not all at the same time, but only just.  After they’ve lost Castiel (his coat is filthy and stiff and abused, and Dean hasn’t wrapped it around himself, but he also can’t quite stop touching it), and after they lose Bobby (his knuckles hurt, but not enough, and Sam is next to him every second so there’s nothing more he can hit), Dean finds his old cowboy blanket folded up in the spare room.  He can’t bring himself to leave it there, so he rolls it up and takes it back to his spot on Bobby’s couch, setting it next to him.  He cracks open a bottle, takes a swig, and sets it on the coffee table.

It’s only when Sam says his name from the doorway that he realizes he’s been sitting there with his head in his hands.

 

9.

The bunker gets chilly at night, because it apparently takes more than two Winchesters, a delirious prophet, and a depressed ex-angel to figure out the heating.  That’s Problem Number Two.  Problem Number One is that Castiel, alive and human now and not great at it yet, hasn't been letting himself sleep at night.  Dean has found a solution to both.

He’s in position, nested in the corner of the library couch with two blankets wrapped around him and a book that he really doesn't care about, when Castiel comes in, silent as he ever was, for what Dean has been fondly referring to as the Nightly Huddle.  Sam has been fondly referring to it as the Nightly Cuddle, because he happened to find them the _one_ time they both conked out.  Dean is finding himself caring about that less and less.  Doesn't mean Sam isn't still getting something weird thrown at his head every time he says it.

Castiel is okay today.  Yesterday he wasn’t, so it’s better than usual to see him out of bed and making eye contact.  Dean smiles at him, because he missed this yesterday.

(He reasoned, at first, that the Huddle is good for Castiel, and they should do everything they can to help him out while he adjusts. He reasons, now, that there’s no point in stopping something that’s good for everyone involved.)

Castiel doesn’t smile back, but he sits down by Dean’s legs and waits.  Dean unwraps the blankets from around himself and holds them open, letting Castiel crawl in and get comfortable against his side.  Once he’s good, Dean wraps them both in the only wings either of them have left.

As soon as he’s settled under the blankets with nothing sticking out, Castiel closes his eyes and heaves a deep sigh, like he’s just unfastened something heavy from his back.

After the first couple of times doing this, at least on good days, Castiel started asking questions - hence the name, because, you know, huddle up, get info straight with the coach (read: Dean), strategize, just they're strategizing for a life instead of a game.  Sam gave him a particularly stupid face when he explained, but whatever, it makes way more sense than Sam's dumb name for it.

Castiel keeps it to one topic per night, usually: why do pillows feel better when they’re cool even as blankets feel better when they’re warm, why are damaging foods so much more pleasing on his tongue, why is this song continuing to loop in his mind unbidden when it has already been doing so for six hours?  How does one overcome hiccups, cravings, unpleasant breath in the morning, this constant hopelessness?  Is it always like this?

 _No_ , Dean told him last time.   _No, man, it gets better.  It’s not always gonna be great, it’s not even always gonna be good, but it’s not always gonna be bad, either.  Promise._

He tries to help, to answer even the hard ones, to explain and teach and coach and make it easier, even when he knows he can't.  It won't stop him trying.

Some nights, Castiel doesn't ask anything, but stays.  Sometimes shakes for a little while.  Sometimes silently dampens Dean’s shirt.  Usually falls asleep, which is a win all on its own.  Whatever Castiel does, Dean keeps him wrapped up tight.

Today, Castiel is quiet for a long while, and Dean is pretty sure he’s gone to sleep until he’s proven wrong.  “Dean?”

“Hm.”

"Have you ever flown a kite?"

Dean blinks down at him.  "You didn't know how to use a  _toothbrush_ , but you know about kites?"

"I was unaware of the etiquette," Castiel says, sounding put out but readjusting against Dean's shoulder and staying there.  "I don't know very much about kites.  I've just seen one flown before, and wondered if it's a common activity."

"For normal people, maybe," Dean shrugs.  "But...yeah, actually, I have flown one before.  One time."

Castiel glances up at him, waiting, and Dean huffs a laugh, because he can't remember the last time he thought about this.  "Yeah. Sam had to make a kite for this school field day or something, and there was gonna be a contest.  It was supposed to be a parent-kid thing, but Dad was just off a rough hunt, wasn't doing so well.  So I helped Sammy out.  Designed, co-built, co-tested."

"You know how to make them?"

"Geez, like twenty years ago, maybe.  It was the ugliest friggin' thing, didn't look anything like the others.  Sam was so ready to just pretend he was someone else's kid.  But I shit you not, that thing was still in the air twenty minutes after all those pansy Holly Hobby junk-heaps crashed and burned."  He shakes his head, seeing a little pipsqueak-Sam's eyes getting wider and wider as the competitors fell, and the incredulous grin he'd shot him across the field.  "The physics teacher actually came and talked to us after it won.  Think he wanted to send us to junior engineering camp or something.  Didn't really matter since we were only in town a few weeks, but Sammy got to be a rock star for a minute."

"You're skilled in engineering," Castiel says.  "I have seen your creations."

"Nah," Dean says, fidgeting.  "I do guesswork, sometimes I'm right.  But yeah, I've done the kite thing."

"I think I would like to do that," Castiel murmurs into Dean's shirt.  "It seems peaceful."

Dean is smiling, kind of a lot, because weeks of flat mumbles and hollow, hurting stares and no interest in anything but what he’s lost, but now, a kite.  "Yeah," he says.  "Think we could swing that.  Get the stuff tomorrow, crash course in kite-building, we could have it in the sky by Tuesday."

Castiel shifts, like something caught his ear.  "Tuesday?" he repeats.

"Yeah."  Dean lifts his head, looking for Castiel's expression.  "That okay?"

The angle is weird and he can't quite see Castiel's face, but through his shirt, he can feel a smile begin.  "Yes," Castiel says, and the smile grows a little, enough to see, just a glimpse.  "Yes, it should be Tuesday."

Broken, but healing, little baby steps, and Dean is so damn glad he's here to witness it, that first human smile.  

Because he's right here, and because it feels like he's won something, Dean squeezes Castiel's shoulders and presses a kiss to the top of his head.  Castiel's breath doesn't change, and the little smile stays where it is, half pressed into Dean's shoulder.  His hand slides once up and down Dean's side over his shirt, and Dean’s thumb echoes the motion against Castiel’s back.

The combined heat of them is a shield against the bunker's chill, and Dean might never move.  That could be okay.

“Might have to sell Sam on it, though,” he says after a minute.  “He’s got a hang-up about planning things for Tuesdays ever since this really weird day we had once.  Might, uh.  Might just be you and me.”

Castiel says quietly, “I would like that, as well.”

Broken, once or twice or a hundred.  But healing.

 

10.

He dreams of Mom, this time, and her wings take up the whole sky.

They’re every color and no color at all, beautiful, and they move with her hair when she kneels in front of him and strokes his wings, like they’re something beautiful, too.  He knows without looking that they’re small, nothing like Michael’s, nothing like hers.  They’re just his, now.

She lifts him all the way into the clouds and catches him when they get there, so he won’t keep rising up and up past the stars.  He goes along when she pulls him back, and he dives into her, and she enfolds him in her wings, and it’s all he has ever wanted.

Feathers slip slowly away from his arms, and when he looks for his wings, he only finds a heavy blanket draped around his shoulders.  His heart sinks, but her palm slides against his cheek, and she smiles.  Her voice is everything and nothing, like her wings.

_It’s the same, love._

She kisses the top of his head, and for a second, he thinks he understands.

“Dean.  Hey.”

His eyes open, and he blinks into the dark.  Sam, standing behind the couch, stops shaking his shoulder but leaves his hand where it is.  The DVD menu is looping on the screen, and Castiel is shifting sleepily in his arms.

“Bad dream?” Sam quietly asks, and Dean notices he can feel moisture on his eyelashes, on his cheeks.

The whole sky.  They took up the whole sky.

Swallowing hard, he shakes his head.  Takes a breath and whispers back, “Mom.”

Sam says nothing, but his hand tightens on Dean’s shoulder.  Dean reaches up to grip his wrist for a second, inhale and exhale and a pat, and they let go.

Dean blows out a breath and wipes at his face, and Sam asks, “You okay?”

“Yeah.”  He glances up, takes in Sam’s stiff, dozed-off-in-a-chair posture and the droop to his eyelids, and pulls himself together with another breath.  “Get some sleep, Sammy.”

Sam frowns, but exchanges a brief look with Castiel, who is silently awake now and listening, before nodding.  “Night, guys.”

Dean dodges the question in Castiel’s stare, kissing his hairline and muttering about the bathroom before getting up.  He splashes cold water on his face behind the closed door, then dries off and holds the towel against his eyes for a minute, grasping for every detail he can remember, her face and her voice and her touch.

_It’s the same, love._

Castiel is waiting for him, leaning against the wall outside the bathroom door, blanket still around his shoulders from the movie.  He studies Dean, owlish in the dark.

“You dreamed of your mother,” he says softly, like he’s spent the last five minutes putting it together from whatever part of the conversation it was that woke him up.

Dean nods.  He steps forward and Castiel’s arms are around him, wrapping him in blankets, wrapping him in wings.  Dean smiles and lets out an unsteady breath, wondering if Castiel has a clue about just what he’s doing.  Hugging back, he whispers into Castiel’s shoulder, “You should have seen her wings.”

Stroking his back, Castiel replies, curved with something like a smile, “I don’t need to.”

He kisses Dean on the side of his head, and Dean lets out a shuddery laugh because he can hear her so, so clearly.

_This one’s from me, and this one’s from your angel._

He’s still smiling when he pulls back enough to kiss his human angel’s lips and whisper against them, “It was a good dream.”

“I’m glad,” Castiel whispers back, giving him an answering kiss and pulling back to take his hand.  He tugs on it and turns toward their room down the hall, the bedside lamp a distant glow.  From here, he can just make out the snapshot of his mother smiling, illuminated, lighting the way.

Dean kisses Castiel's fingers and follows as his angels guide him through the dark.


End file.
